The Mother
by the author formerly known as
Summary: Bella's pregnancy turns out not to be all rainbows and sunshine-- the way things should have happened. character death. COMPLETE


"No!" she screamed, and she kicked with all her strength- limited on a good day. Today what little protection she could give was even lessened. Bella had never felt more weak, or more useless.

"You can't!"

Someone else was screaming, too; the one other person on her side. She heard a crash in the other room and knew that Rosalie was fighting with everything she had. For the last few weeks, Rose had been her protector, the one looking out for Bella, and for her baby. _That thing_, they called him. _The little monster_. Bella's baby wasn't a monster. He wasn't a thing. He was hers, hers and Edward's, their child. Why didn't Edward see? Why had they tricked Rosalie out of Bella's presence, why were they doing this to her?

Bella struggled against Edward's arms, watching Carlisle prepare the various tools he needed. She saw him readying a syringe- to make her sleep? To lessen the pain? _No_, she thought. She didn't want to be knocked out. She wanted to keep fighting.

"Jasper, help!" she heard Emmett call out, and another crash came from the other room. Edward glanced away, just for a moment. Bella flung out one arm, knocking something glass over. But it was a ridiculous attempt. Had she thought she could escape them? Had she actually been stupid enough to believe that this would turn out okay?

Bella let herself go slack, only the strength to cry left in her.

"Bella?" Edward's voice reached her ears. She opened her eyes to look at him, horrified at the pain and worry she saw there. Why was he worried about this and not about protecting their son? Or daughter.

"Edward," she moaned. "Why? Why are you doing this? How could you kill someone who hasn't done any harm?"

"Hasn't done any harm? Look at yourself Bella!" Edward hissed, and she heard herself wailing, "But he's only a baby!"

In the next room Rose screamed even louder than before. She heard a whack- a rock hard fist connecting with a rock hard face, perhaps. Or something else.

"It's a monster," Edward breathed, and Carlisle whispered, "We're ready to go."

Something pinched her arm- a needle, and she felt her body numbing. "No," she moaned. "_Don't do this._"

But they didn't listen. They hadn't ever listened, she realized. Not even to themselves. She thought of the times she'd heard them talking of wanting children. Did they just not care anymore? She thought they had all wanted children! Rosalie in particular, and Esme, too. Carlisle had also seemed...

Bella lost her train of thought. She felt groggy. She shut her eyes, not wanting to see what they would do.

"How are we going to do this? Once it's been cut out?" It was Esme, Esme in the room with Edward and Carlisle, standing there ready to kill Bella's baby. One of the last ones Bella expected.

"Rip it's heart out," Carlisle answered as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

She heard scraping. She heard disgusting gnawing. A baby's wails. And a gasp, a gasp from a throat she recognized.

"Oh, God," Edward was saying, and the others didn't answer. Barely she felt Carlisle's hands at her stomach- sewing her back up? What had they done in the first place?

"Edward, kill it." Carlisle's voice sounded dull, but still commanding.

Edward hesitated. "But..."

"_Edward._" Esme this time. "Do it _now_. Do it fast."

"I can't," she heard him murmur, and felt relief flood her veins- or was it just more morphine? Edward wouldn't hurt their baby. It was okay. Everything was okay.

"Carlisle," Esme seethed in a strained voice, and Bella heard Carlisle drop something metal. She heard a swish- he turned around... and the air was still once more.

"It looks..." he began, and there was that voice again, "Don't do this! It's a monster, whatever it is, let's not make this more difficult! That thing almost killed Bella, and who knows what else it could do! I won't be losing any of my children to... this."

"I can't, Esme. Not dangerous... Don't you see? Look!" Edward pleaded.

"Oh for God's sake, I'll kill the little beast!" Esme shouted, her voice horrified and angry.

There was a crash. A ripping. A horrible, horrible ripping sound. Like something had been torn in half. There was no more baby sounds. No crying. Only a dry sobbing. Bella knew it was Esme. And she knew that it was Esme she heard rush from the room a moment later. Carlisle's departure was much less dramatic. He went quietly. Bella heard the door click.

She opened her eyes, one first, then the other. Edward sat by her bed, ashen faced and silent.

"Bella," he sighed when he saw her looking at him, "Oh Bella, I'm so sorry, I was so wrong. We should have- we should..."

Bella tried to sit up, and he leaned in to help her. She looked around at the broken glass, the bloody towels, her stitched stomach... There was a strange, broken egg-shaped thing sitting nearby. The empty placenta. And there, in the corner, on the floor-

"No!" Bella cried. "No, oh my..."

Edward walked over and picked up the bloody mess quickly. He grabbed a towel and wrapped it up, so Bella couldn't see.

"Edward wait! Please, let me look."

"No, Bella."

"_Please, Edward._"

He brought it to her slowly, setting it gently in her arms. He moved the towel away from its face- only its face. Maybe the most beautiful face she had ever seen. She gasped, dropping it into her lap. And the rough fabric fell away from the rest of the tiny body.

A gaping hole was torn through the tiny chest. It's heart was gone- it's? _His_. Her baby's. His life had been just torn away- no, Bella realized, peering closer, though it made her so ill, so sad, to look. Her heart. She was a girl.

Renesmee. That would have been her name.

Named for Renee, and for Esme. The one who had destroyed her.

Her eyes, Renesmee, Bella's daughter... Her eyes were frozen open in shock, just the way they probably were the moment she was put in Esme's arms. They were brown, just like Charlie's. And her _hair_, oh, it was beautiful. Bronze. Like Edward's. There were only a few soft wisps at the top of her head, but Bella saw it anyways.

Bella's lips trembled. Tears flowed down her cheeks and landed slickly, sickeningly, inside the hole that was her baby's chest. Edward stroked her hair, saying nothing... He heard Jasper's thoughts floating away. He was running deeper into the forest, only wanting to escape the house and the aura the whole place suddenly had. _Saddest place in the world. _That was what Edward heard in Jasper's mind.

Alice followed her husband, but slowly, looking back over her shoulder... and looking ahead. Rosalie curled in upon herself. Moaning to Emmett, "We had a chance, we had a chance, we could have been..."

"No, Rose," Emmett whispered. "We never would have been that baby's parents."

The house creaked. Someone screamed. A heart lie sticky and lifeless under a table, flung aside, useless.

And in the womblike catacombs of the Cullens' basement, crying to her husband but praying to God, Esme wondered who was the monster, and who it was that deserved to die.


End file.
